More Italian Artillery

 

Another Italian 75mm, this time painted up for Europe or Russia.

Exactly the same model and figures as last time, with just a different colour scheme. 

The Size of Money

 

In one of our ancient D&D sessions, it actually became relevant exactly what size were the coins the characters were carrying. Thanks to the internet, and especially to the miraculous Wolfram Alpha, I can now give a categorical answer to that age-old question.

The assumed weight of coin in AD&D2e is 50 to the pound, which means that any coin, regardless of its metal, weighs 9.07 grams. With that information, and knowing the density of the three primary metals for coinage (gold, silver, and copper), Wolfram Alpha gives us the respective diameters for cylinders 2mm high (or thick, if you prefer) of 17.3279mm, 23.421mm, and 25.419mm respectively.

So, there you are. That's how big your coins are.

Italian 75mm Howitzer (15mm)

 

Finished (more or less) the Battlefront 15mm WWII Italian 75mm howitzer base I've been using as a learning exercise for myself.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with it. And I've figured out a few things that will make building future ones a bit smoother. 

Shells for bases

 

I made some artillery bits to populate some of my 15mm artillery bases, to give them a bit more of a lived-in look.

The STLs are available at 

https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_howitzer_shells_15mm_ for a couple of bucks.

They're specifically modelled as WWII Italian 75m howitzer shells, but they're pretty generic and could stand in for a whole bunch of short-case one-piece ammunition variants.

There are three sizes of ready-ammo stacks in the set, plus an array of individual shells, plus one of expended empty cases.

The gun and 15mm minis shown here are from Battlefront. 

Space Weirdos

 

I just nabbed this from https://www.wargamevault.com/en/product/359157/space-weirdos for a measly five bucks.

Space Weirdos is a fairly simple little sci-fi skirmish game, designed to be used with 4-10 minis a side.

It will give me an excuse to break out my old 15mm space opera figures, or else my 28mm OkumArts paper minis.

It plays on a 2x2' or 3x3' board, so nice and compact, and the scatter terrain can be any old bits of junk, whatever is lying around. I guess, if playing with 15mm minis, all the inch units could be translated directly to centimetres, which would make it even more compact.

Measuring is just done with a 5" stick, so very simple. 

I occasionally fancy a spot of sci-fi blasting, but games like Warty-Kay are far too hugeous for me to be bothered with, whereas this is pretty bare-bones stuff. The rules booklet is only 16 pages, which is pretty manageable.

 

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There is also this expansion, fan-submitted stuff (all proceeds to charity) which I haven't yet looked at.

https://www.wargamevault.com/en/product/540844/space-weirdos-weird-millenium 

It's also only five bucks, and I may well grab it after trying out the base rules first. We shall see.

Flak 36-38 88mm (15mm)

 

This is the 3d printed 15mm Flak 36-38 88mm gun that I've been working on the last couple of days.

The crew are all Command Decision 15mm metals. 

Overall I'm reasonably happy with it, except that the groundwork is a bit garish. I might hit it with the airbrush and see if I can tone it down a bit. 

 A bit later...

The groundwork is now definitely less gaudy, but I don't know that it's really any improvement.

Ah well, never mind. 

88s In The Offing

 

This is a Flak 36-38 88mm in 15mm scale (1:100) that I FDM printed a few years ago. Dragged it out of the junk pile, since I want a couple of 88s for certain reasons.

From a distance, it looks roughly like a Flak 36, but any closer than about two metres away it looks like absolute rubbish. So I think I'll reprint it in resin, which should be less pants. I hope.

I'll take the opportunity to separate the gun shield off from the mesh and thin it down a bit.

 Next day...

To nobody's surprise, I'm sure, the resin print is a bajillion times better than the old FDM. The modified, thinned-down shield is much better, and looks a bit less like it's made from a chunk of armour plate from the Tirpitz.

At the moment the gun shield is just sitting in place. I'll glue it down permanently when it comes time for basing the thing. 

 A bit later...

The gun has its initial base paint applied, and I've glued the cruciform chassis to an MDF disc with a bit of basing dirt on it.

I've also added a Command Decision crewmen on one of the seats. 

I'll be giving the gun a 3-colour camo paint job. I was considering putting the crewman in an Italian motley of European and tropical uniform, but I think I'll probably just do him in overall field grey for maximum flexibility.

There are more crew figures yet to be painted and mounted on the base, and more ground flocking to do. 

Germanic Test Painting

I've been trying to find a set of pre-mixed paints that I'm satisfied with for painting my 15mm WWII German foot-sloggers and artillerymen. They've almost always turned out too dark, sometimes too light.

This bloke, a Command Decision 15mm artilleryman with a binocular rangefinder, I base-coated in Vallejo ModelColor 759 German Tank Crew, and then dry-brushed (or moist-brushed really) fairly heavily with 886 Grey Green. I added an overall wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade (my favourite), which darkened everything a tad, and then came back in with 886 again for the highlights.

This method gives me a field grey that I'm satisfied with. I know that German field grey is a vague and uncertain colour anyway, but I do want something that looks good to me.

I could have done the base coat in 830 German Field Grey, which is tonally similar to 759, but warmer. Once the wash has gone on, I doubt that it would make much difference.
 

DTRPG Loot

 

These just arrived for me today from DriveThruRPG.

They took about a week to get here, much faster than used to be the case, as DTRPG now has PoD resources being fulfilled from Australia rather than the USA — also quite a lot cheaper in postage, as the US postal service charges an arm and a leg and your firstborn child to deliver anything outside the continental USA.

Neither of these volumes is really essential for my needs, and I really bought them on a whim. I've been interested in the Dark Sun milieu for many years now, and although I'm highly unlikely to run a DS campaign, it's nice to have a copy of my own. And as for the Undermountain book: who doesn't want more megadungeons? My only regret is that the first volume, the prequel to this sequel, isn't available as a PoD hard-copy. 

Old Gun

 

This is a WWII German 105mm LeFH howitzer, 15mm (1:100), 3d printed quite a long time ago and finally finished off.

The crew are a mixture of Peter Pig metals and 3d printed, and the base is a honking great big fender washer. The big washer may have been a mistake; it adds a lot of weight to the group, and it may imperil the figures a bit under the mashing of great sausage-fingers.

The gun is a later model, with pressed-steel wheels and a muzzle brake, but painted in Dunkelgrau for pre-1943 service. After then they would have been in Dunkelgelb, and most likely in a three-colour camo scheme. 

As far as actual wargaming goes, it's largely pointless, as guns like this are almost always going to be off-table. Never mind though.